Stock Option — Exposition collective — 22,48 m² Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: January 14 → February 18, 2012

Following the proposal of Caroline Pradal, 22,48 m² brings together a group of artists closely related to “La Générale” and invites them to take over all available square meters.

Since 2005 the artist collective “La Générale” acts as a working platform dedicated to the production of artworks and the organisation of exhibitions, concerts or performances, and as a regular host of artists and curators of different origins. “La Générale” became rapidly known as a significant member within the networks of a young and international scene of emerging artists.

This artist collective is continually changing, adapting and developing, all the time responding to a real need to get together. The temporary take over of spaces, like for instance the porcelain factory in Sèvres where they work at the moment, is an integral part of their work. Momentary and transient, these spaces shrink with the time as the owners attempt to re-appropriate them. Constantly trying to innovate, to experiment and to expand, “La Générale” is currently looking for a new working space to allow the group to pursue its cultural engagement.

Such critical situations see the artists confronted to problems linked to a confined and forced form of cohabitation. The diversity of their works and their storage in a space that’s equally used as a working studio affects their mental and physical space of production.

The exhibition at 22,48 m² seeks to comment on the conditioning inherent to cohabitation and the reduction of space. It tries to see it as a constraint that’s equally infringing and nourishing and thus stimulating work and critical thought. It provides an occasion for these artists to share their creative work and to confront it to the works of others.

Thus the surface area of 22,48m2 imposes solutions for the organisation and cohabitation of a diverse range of artworks. The artists search for a possibility to exhibit their works by taking into consideration the diversity of the pieces and the way they might be stocked in one and the same space. Stock Option, a term borrowed from the lexical field of finance as a reminder to current affairs, finds a new resonance here.

Between organisation and chaos the lines are blurred and the solutions vary. Stock Option is an installation in constant movement that continues throughout the exhibition pursuing its quest for alternative solutions with the possible risk of never find an equilibrium and to remain an eternal work in progress.